The 2017/18 Playoffs for Arizona Tennis Ball Cricket took off this past weekend, with quarterfinal matches being played in and around the Valley.
At Grenada Park the Warriors took on the Terminators in a near cloudless day.
When the captains met in the middle, it was the Warriors who won the toss and elected to bat first.
The choice seemed like a poor one at first with the Terminator’s Abhishiktha Tummala opening the bowling in fantastic fashion.
He nearly got the maiden in his first over before Ankit Jaswal ruined it with the first runs of the match, a four through the covers on the fifth delivery.
But it was during the third over, and Tummala’s second spell, that the breakthrough of taking the Warriors aggressive captain’s Kathan Pandya‘s wicket, a top edge that flew easily into the man at point.
The Warriors needed only to wait until the fifth over to make their own reply as Eswar Illa came into bowl, facing Jaswal for five of his six delivers with Jaswal taking Illa for an impressive fourteen runs in the over, with the final two deliveries being taken for four and six respectively.
Varma Sridatla was the bowler on Abhishiktha’s other end and was also keeping the bats quiet until he too was rocked by Jaswal in the following over with the Warriors taking an impressive ten runs in the sixth.
The Terminators needed to do something and something they did when they brought in Srikanth Adi to bowl who no less got two wickets in his first two deliveries, taking out the scoring machine Jaswal and Mayur Jain for a golden duck, both caught.
The runs continued to come but so did the wickets so that at the drinks break the Warriors were 55-for-5, about as even a game you can get. The Warriors were on pace to reach three figures, sure, but the Terminators were also on the road to getting the opposite side all out.
In the twelfth over Tanmay Manek got Nikhil Ramoju wicket but it was a curse in disguise as the new batsman, Ashwin Ram Pammi, came to the crease and batted an impressive 18 runs for his side in just 24 deliveries.
All in all, the Warriors ended up posting a respectable 99-for-7, giving the Terminators a target of 100 runs on the dot.
The second innings saw the Warriors take another step forward to victory, taking the first wicket in the first over, Ojas Bhatia‘s delivery making Adarsh Pulipati play it into the field, caught.
At the drinks break, the Terminators were in a spot of trouble having scored just 41 runs, nine short of the required run rate. The good news for them was they had wickets, and plenty of them having only lost two.
The Terminators turned up the aggressiveness and were rewarded with a six from Raj Ineni, but were also given the foul gift of two wickets. After 11, it was 47-for-4, with the Warriors clearly in the driver’s seat.
But all that changed with the massive fifth wicket partnership of Ramesh Bodakunta 17(19) and Pavan Kanukollu 19(21), bringing in an uninterrupted 41 much needed runs. It was this pair that brought the score up to 88 runs before the eighteenth over until Bodakunta was finally run out. But by then, it was too late for the Warriors and the Terminators were well on their way to victory, overcoming the odds.
The Warriors still had to deal with the other half of the partnership that was still at the crease, a very in form Kanukollu who knocked in the final needed eight runs, with the penultimate runs coming in the form of a six.
Pavan Kanukollu and his 27 not out is Cricket Arizona’s Man of the Match.